A young woman agrees to marry a handsome prince -- only to discover it was all a trap. She is thrown into a cave with a fire-breathing dragon and must rely solely on her wits and will to survive.
Evelyn Skye wrote the book “Damsel” back in April of last year about a princess who marries into another family to save her struggling kingdom only to be sacrificed to a dragon, so she must learn to adapt and survive on her own. Sounds interesting more than it may look, right?
Well, Netflix seems to agree….to disagree.
Getting the director from 28 Weeks Later to helm this project seemed like a done deal. After all, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is no stranger to survival tension…..so why does this effort feel so lacking in personality? The vibe I was getting was he was heavily handicapped in elevating the milquetoast production beyond a certain threshold, like a template with a ceiling he couldn’t go further above.
Not much to criticize when it comes to cinematography; there’s no shortage of visual flourishes and memorable images from how the film is shot and how well the editing compliments that style.
Visual effects are both slickly realized and yet too slick for the material, so much of the pacing is heavily imbalanced between fast-tracking survival mode and painstakingly sedated constipation, only exacerbated by the lopsided tonal shifts and yet, despite the typical glossy, overpolished lighting Netflix productions tend to overuse, I think it actually works in this one instance. The production design might be superficial in how it establishes its world and the stakes it supplies but it did make me buy into this medieval-esque time period via its atmosphere alone and atmosphere is paramount to any fantasy or adventure film.
I don’t need to drone on about Millie Bobby Brown’s performance banter; you can tell she’s dedicated to her role and marginally succeeds at getting the most mileage out of and grounding her character. A damn shame the rest of the cast either can’t or refuses to match or surpass Millie’s range with Shohreh Aghdashloo being a glaring exception, an absolutely chilling vocal performance.
The noticeable lack of engrossing dialogue, interactions and wit isn’t any better.
Just like the book, the film’s premise does not revamp or rework the “damsel saves herself” narrative…..nor does it try to. It is yet another tried-and-tried effort to tell the story of a princess seeking adventure in a bid to prove her independence while being trapped in a world where manners and expectations often leave little room for female solidarity and ANNOYINGLY, this is yet another one that just doesn’t work.
Despite how condescending that beginning bit might sound, there is definitely merit in seeing a film actively trying to overcome stereotypes but this story seems so dead set on trying to be as subversive as possible, it only makes itself more predictable and monotonous. Think Maleficent meets Tangled meets The Descent, only the writing is heavily inconsistent between its wants and needs. Its first act takes way too long to get going, wasting the first 30 minutes on a twist so obvious the trailer didn't even bother to hide it and its second and third acts go by way too quickly for any feasible tension to bubble over and by then, that old-timey atmosphere I praised the film for quietly disappears frame by frame. If the script isn’t flimsy and loose with its storybeats, it’s just formulaic, hollow and hoarsely underdeveloped. You know exactly where the story’s going to go and save for the REAL TWIST, its ending is hardly ever in doubt.
So many of its themes had potential beyond the typical regurgitated trappings of self-reliance and courage. For all this talk on anything it takes to save the kingdom, some commentary on the potential bloodthirsty means by which colonizers maintain their control over stolen land would’ve been pleasant and then we get to the actual big twist of the movie, which as heavy handed as it is, speaks on the gradual need to break the cycle of violence to dismantle the working class and start anew. But they barely go anywhere with it; any themes it wants us to digest are annoyingly surface level only further compounded by how bluntly oblivious the film is to the themes extolled by the outcome of Skye’s novel.
Also, the fact that most of the male characters are either bad, stupid or useless, while the female characters are all brave, intelligent or self-sacrificing, shows that in the end, NONE of them are really all that multi-dimensional. The film contents itself with reversing gender roles, but fails to go beyond that as well.
It’s brutal for the kids and yet too shallow for the adults to take away anything meaningful from it AND it deliberately shies away from elevating itself.
There’s a difference between trying too hard and not trying hard enough….and this is a case of both.
